Yahoo Begins Testing Bing Powered Results This Month

Yahoo sent out an email discussing some of the organic Yahoo-to-Bing transition topics that are on the mind of their advertisers. The email goes over typical questions and tips but adds some additional insight into launch and testing dates.

Yahoo confirmed they are testing Bing powered results “offline,” which we already know. But today, I believe for the first time, Yahoo has confirmed they will be testing Bing powered results in the live search results. The email wrote:

Though much of our testing is already happening offline, this month we’ll also test the delivery of organic and paid search results provided by Microsoft on live Yahoo! traffic.

This month, Yahoo will begin testing search results, both paid and organic, on live Yahoo Search queries. Yahoo said the “testing volumes will fluctuate during this period” and they will make sure to keep “paid search volume in particular kept low,” as to not impact advertisers.

So keep your eyes open for Bing search results on Yahoo as soon as today.

The switch over will be sometime in August or September, and possibly later, if the testing does not go well.

Yahoo played up the importance of this change saying that according to comScore, Bing will ultimately power 30% of the search queries globally on both paid and organic search.